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Classic and Contemporary Poetry
THE SEMANTICS OF FLOWERS ON MEMORIAL DAY, by BOB HICOK Poet Analysis Poet's Biography First Line: Historians will tell you my uncle / wouldn't have called it world war ii Subject(s): Flowers; Holidays; Memorial Day | |||
Historians will tell you my uncle wouldn't have called it World War II or the Great War plus One or Tombstone Over my Head. All of this language came later. He and his buddies knew it as get my ass outta here or fucking trench foot and of course sex please now. Petunias are an apology for ignorance, my confidence that saying high density bombing or chunks of brain in cold coffee even suggests the athleticism of his flinch or how casually he picked the pieces out. Geraniums symbolize the secrets life kept from him, the wonder of variable speed drill and how the sky would have changed had he lived to shout it's a girl. My hands enter dirt easily, a premonition. I sit back on my uncle's stomach exactly like I never did, he was a picture to me, was my father looking across a field at wheat lying down to wind. For awhile, Tyrants' War and War of World Freedom and Anti-Nazi War skirmished for linguistic domination. If my uncle called it anything but too many holes in too many bodies no flower can say. I plant marigolds because they came cheap and who knows what the earth's in the mood to eat. http://www.wlu.edu/~shenano | Discover our Poem Explanations and Poet Analyses!Other Poems of Interest...MEMORIAL DAY by JOSEPHINE MILES MEMORIAL DAY FOR THE WAR DEAD by YEHUDA AMICHAI MEMORIAL DAY by MICHAEL ANANIA AN ODE ON THE UNVEILING OF THE SHAW MEMORIA BOSTON COMMON, MAY 31, 1897 by THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH FREDERICKSBURG by THOMAS BAILEY ALDRICH THE DEATH OF GRANT by AMBROSE BIERCE MEMORIAL DAY by WILLIAM E. BROOKS VANQUISHED; ON THE DEATH OF GENERAL GRANT by FRANCIS FISHER BROWNE |
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